There were, of course, originally only two members of the Silent 3 of St Botolph's. They were Wendy Trevellyan and Paul Reed. The third member was Anthony Rowley who they met in the Rowan Tree cafe in Bristol in 1984. He was talking bollocks about music with an old schoolfriend.

Wendy sang, Paul played guitar and Anthony... well, it wasn't exactly clear what Anthony did. He wrote some lyrics, designed their flyers and record sleeves and spent a long time arguing with their first record label, the glamorously named Revolver Distribution Label.

They were united in the belief that the two greatest albums ever made were Hatful of Hollow by the Smiths and Rattlesnakes by Lloyd Cole & The Commotions.

Their debut album Mrs Dalloway's Party sounded if anything like The Cocteau Twins, and with song titles like 'Copper Coloured Cacophony' they were dismissed as mere copyists by most of the press. They did, however, gather a cult following in Bristol, where Rowley's claims of knowing irony and piss-taking were more plausible.

As a nod in this direction, he called their next release, a 4-track 12" single, 'Moments in Lunch', a swipe at the currently hip Art of Noise. The sleeve notes were a parody of Paul Morley's style, but again the band was doomed to be taken at face value or ignored by the press.

The three had planned to go their seperate ways when they went to university - Wendy had long planned to study English at Manchester, and Paul Geography in Kent - but then Anthony threw a spanner in the works. He had always said he wouldn't leave Bristol, but he suddenly announced he'd secured a place at UMIST to study Computer Science. Enraged, Paul announced that he too would be going to Manchester, and the Silent 3 continued despite itself.

Manchester proved a creative atmosphere, and they polished a more original guitar-based sound, taking their place among the other 'C-86' bands of the time. More gigs and a new album Breakfast in Bed with The Silent 3 followed, released by Factory Records. It included a collaboration with Vini Reilly of the Durutti Column and gained favourable reviews. However, nobody had bothered to get permission for the cover image of Lee Miller and a friend lying in bed in front of a Cocteau wall hanging (another nod at the Cocteau Twins...) and the album had to be pulled at the last moment at great expense. Much time was also wasted in wrangling over Factory's refusal to put it out on the relatively new CD format, Rowley eventually having the album digitally remastered at his own expense and sending it to label boss Tony Wilson's home with a case of scotch. It was finally re-released in the infamous morgue sleeve below and with the truncated title, but so much time had passed since its press coverage it sank without trace. One of Factory's rarer releases, copies of it have been known to change hands for between £20-30.



Touring and Anthony's increasingly erratic behaviour were taking its toll on Wendy. It was about this time that she also discovered she was pregnant. Any outside observer would have assumed that the obvious thing would be to kick Anthony out of the band and get a proper manager - but such was the stress she was under she felt she could no longer perform in public at all. Wendy was taken back in by her parents who bought and converted a windmill for her to live in. Here she lived for many years, bringing up her son Jake. In 1998 Wendy signed a deal with Cooking Vinyl to release her first solo album, entitled I Am Not Jonathan Creek.

Meanwhile, Anthony and Paul spent a year bumming around the States, taking odd jobs and scraping together enough cash to occasionally go into a recording studio where ever they happened to be, and record a track. They returned to the UK with a folk-tinged collection of mournful ballads that they tried - and failed - to flog to 4AD. Ivo Watts-Russell (who had just signed the Red House Painters) said he wasn't interested as he had just signed the Red House Painters. Frustrated at being unfavourably compared to another 4AD band - this time one they had never even heard of - they realeased Songs of Mass Consumption on their own 3AA label. The name of the label, they claimed, had nothing to do with 4AD but was in fact the last 3 digits of their old postcode in Bristol. The album failed to chart.

Moving back to Manchester for a while, the pair became increasingly impressed with the work of Barry Adamson, and started amassing as much new studio technology to help them attain a funkier, sleazier sound. The result was an album, Secret History, comprised largely of instrumentals, that provided a steady source of cash when one of its tracks was used in a TV commercial in the States. Being released days before the collapse of Factory it failed to chart but had some critical success in the UK and became a minor cult item, chiefly through its scarcity and being named by the NME as 'one of the 3 albums that brought down Factory'.

Paul Reed got increasingly involved in the now booming dance scene in Manchester, and Anthony got increasingly pissed off with a loved-up world he didn't like or understand. A split was on the cards, and they finally agreed that Paul would take the studio gear and Anthony the name. Anthony moved to South London where he wrote fiction and became increasingly interested in the possibilities of the new digital editing systems available on low-end PCs. The final release under the name The Silent 3 came in 1997 - Penge Pops Out was a curious instrumental/ambient album that drew on influences from Stereolab to The Orb and Chris Morris.

The entire Silent 3 back catalogue is being re-issued next month on Ekaf Recordings.